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Ingrid Goes West

The first question you’ll ask yourself is: Is “West” a euphemism for the psych ward? It is not, but it is Ingrid’s first stop. Ingrid (Aubrey Plaza) is social media-obsessed. She has no friends except the strangers she stalks on Instagram who becomes her besties in her mind. They’re a little less thrilled when she repeatedly interrupts their lives with her stupified, selfie-riddled presence, and eventually they haul her off for a medicated time-out.

Ingrid is hard to like. She doesn’t quite live in reality, and because we haven’t yet classified social media overconsumption as a mental illness, we feel she brings it on herself. But the truth is, her mother has recently died and she really doesn’t have anyone else in her life. So there’s maybe a little sympathy there, or there should be. But it also means that her $60K inheritance will fund a trip to L.A. where her latest obsession lives. Taylor (Elizabeth Olsen) is an “Instagram star.” She lives and makes her living online, creating picture-perfect moments for her followers to drool over while being sponsored by trendy businesses to do so. So she’s kind of the perfect match for Ingrid. They both eat this shit up. It’s just that a) Taylor doesn’t know they didn’t simply “bump into each other” and b) Ingrid’s a little unhinged and every damn thing is about to unravel.

Aubrey Plaza is great in this. Elizabeth Olsen is pretty great too, though it seems like not a compliment to say someone was believably vain, superficial, and self-obsessed. And I really loved O’Shea Jackson Jr (from Straight Outta Compton) who plays Ingrid’s landlord and is a much better friend to her than she deserves.

The humour is topical and dark. Plaza’s performance is so disarming it’s hard to know how to come at this film – sometimes it’s quite breezy, and other times the claws come out and someone’s face is about to get scratched the eff up. And she’s not afraid to go full lunatic. She knows it’s an unflattering role and she commits to it like avocado toast to a Millennial’s Instagram account.

I really wanted to like this one more than I did…I wasn’t thrilled with it. The ending just felt like it was trying to be a totally different movie…i don’t know…it’s hard to explain. The moods were kind of alll over the place.

Oh man! Just watched this movie like a couple of days ago and it’s CRAZY. Our obsession with social media really comes across in Aubrey Plaza’s psychotic gawks and midnight phone sessions. Elizabeth Olsen is great here because she’s already playing that annoying happy-go-lucky chick which I’m sure she is in real life. Great write-up, Jay.